Senate President Steve Sweeney today called Hurricane Sandy integrity monitor reports released by the state last week underwhelming. Here, Sweeney is pictured in Linden in March.
(William Perlman/The Star-Ledger)

TRENTON — Calling a 24-page Hurricane Sandy integrity oversight monitor report released last week a whitewash, state Senate President Steve Sweeney today said the state must provide more detailed information about its recovery efforts.

Gov. Chris Christie in March 2013 signed a law requiring the state to assign monitors to oversee Sandy-related contracts worth $5 million or more to prevent fraud and abuse. For the first time since the law was enacted, the state Treasury Department last week sent lawmakers a report that summarized work on five projects but lacked detail on the most controversial aspects of the state’s handling of federal disaster relief aid.

At a press conference in the Statehouse today with housing advocates, Sweeney (D-Gloucester) called the report unacceptable.

“We want detail. We want to know what we did right and what we did wrong.” Sweeney said. He said the report released last week is “almost a whitewash of information rather than really getting in and delving into it.”

State officials said the integrity oversight monitoring program complied with the law.

“The law, and it’s provisions for quarterly reporting, have been followed exactly as written,” said Christopher Santarelli, a Treasury Department spokesman.

Thacher Associates was the first firm selected to oversee a recovery project in January, when it started monitoring a roughly $13.6 million project in Elizabeth to repair storm damage in Veterans Memorial Waterfront Park.

Last week’s report covered the Elizabeth project, as well as efforts to repair marinas in Atlantic Highlands and Perth Amboy and the rebuilding of Belmar’s boardwalk.

The report also touched on the contractors hired by the state Department of Community Affairs, or DCA, to distribute federal disaster recovery funding but provided no insight into the work they performed.

The state has so far paid eight contractors roughly $91.7 million through the end of June, including nearly $36 million in payments to Hammerman & Gainer, Inc., or HGI. The state cut ties with the Louisiana-based firm earlier this year following months of complaints from residents about a botched rollout of major housing recovery programs. Additional payments to the firm are still in dispute.

Sweeney and housing advocates who have been critical of the state’s distribution of Sandy aid pointed to reports compiled by Cohn Reznick, a firm hired by the DCA last summer to work as an integrity oversight monitor. The state has paid Cohn Reznick more than $5 million for its work through June 25.

A federal report released earlier this year said the state planned to release those reports but officials have subsequently refused to do so.

DCA spokeswoman Lisa Ryan said Cohn Reznick serves as an internal auditor and program advisor for the agency. She said the reports, some of which include investigative materials, from Cohn Reznick are “advisory, deliberative and/or consultative” and therefore are not public documents.

Adam Gordon, staff attorney with Fair Share Housing Center, said by not releasing the reports the state is contradicting itself.

“They basically have after the fact created, in their minds, a second, pseudo integrity monitor program, that is a program they made up as opposed to a program that the law created,” Gordon said. “That is just ridiculous.”